CNN’s Kaitlan Collins grilled Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) over her naming “a Jeffrey Epstein” as a GOP donor — despite the Epstein she named being a totally different person than the late child sex predator.
Crockett joined Collins on Wednesday’s The Source shortly after she took to the House floor and named multiple Republicans she said received donations from “somebody” named Jeffrey Epstein. After noting that she had her team dig in “very quickly,” she said: “Mitt Romney, the NRCC, Lee Zeldin, George Bush, WinRed, McCain-Palin, Rick Lazio.”
Zeldin, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, quickly fired back on X:
“Yes, Crockett, a physician named Dr. Jeffrey Epstein (who is a totally different person than the other Jeffrey Epstein) donated to a prior campaign of mine,” he wrote.
According to Crockett, she was not trying to “mislead” anyone or suggest that the Jeffrey Epstein she was naming was the Epstein that has been at the center of heated debate in Congress. Crockett’s address to the House came during an attempt to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) over the revelation that she had texted back and forth with Epstein in 2019 during a congressional hearing.
Epstein died in 2019 of an apparent suicide while facing sex trafficking charges. He was already a registered sex offender at the time.
Crockett told Collins:
Listen, I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein. Just so that people understand, when you make a donation, your picture is not there. And because they decided to spring this on us in real time, I wanted the Republicans to think about what could potentially happen because I knew that they didn’t even try to go through the FEC. So my team, what they did is they Googled. And that is specifically why I said, a, Jeffrey Epstein. Unlike Republicans, I at least don’t go out and just tell lies. Because it was not the same one, that’s fine. But when Lee Zeldin had something to say, all he had to say was it was a different Jeffrey Epstein. He admitted that he did receive donations from a Jeffrey Epstein. So at least I wasn’t trying to mislead people. Now, have I dug in to find out who this doctor is? I have not. So I will trust and take what he says is that it wasn’t that Jeffrey Epstein, but I was not attempting to mislead anybody. I literally had maybe 20 minutes before I had to do that debate.
“Yeah, but people might see that say, well, you’re trying to make it sound like he took money from a literal sex offender,” Collins shot back.
“But I literally did not know,” Crockett said.
She again argued her team did not have enough time to do the proper “homework” on who exactly this Jeffrey Epstein was.
“Within 20 minutes, you could not find that out, not from just doing a quick search on FEC. So, number one, I made sure that I was clear that it was a Jeffrey Epstein, but I never said that it specifically that Jeffrey Epstein because I knew that we would need more time to really dig in,” the congresswoman said.
Collins noted that Plaskett was actually texting the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The CNN host asked Crockett, who argued President Donald Trump should be in the “hot seat” over his past friendship with Epstein, if it was “appropriate” for Plaskett to be texting a registered sex offender and getting notes about questions to ask during a congressional hearing.
“I mean, would you text with someone who is a registered sex offender about what you said?” Collins asked.
Plaskett has claimed she was simply trying to get “information” out of Epstein.
“My deal is this, the Republicans are constantly texting with a 34-count convicted felon,” Crockett said. “So if it’s okay for them to text him at any point in time, then I’m not going to say that that’s right or wrong, especially to the extent that you’re talking about kicking someone off their committee. Were they talking, were they sexting? Was it a matter of her being involved in the pedophilia? No, it was nothing like that.”
Watch above via CNN.
The post ‘I Never Said It Was THAT Jeffrey Epstein’ Jasmine Crockett Grilled on CNN for Naming ‘Totally Different’ Epstein as GOP Donor first appeared on Mediaite.
